Stratics Veteran

Honestly I think I lose about 2 months a year, the part that freaks me out more though is my account age reads DIFFERENTLY depending on what shard I'm on O_x

This has been happening for a while though, I complained about it last back in may or so that I was getting offered my vet reward on shards I don't play on, but on my home shard my anniversary was 4 months away...

Stratics Veteran

I'm stuck at 118 month here - just noticed now, because I waited for my rewards. Went to check and sure enough, when I log into account management it says: "Welcome xxxXXXxxx, member since December 2000."

Stratics Veteran

"My account isn't aging properly! What's wrong?"
I got an update back from our database folks and the process that passes account age to the game servers is, in fact, not working properly. I don't have an ETA yet, but we have people working on it.
Usually, it doesn't take that long to get the process started up again, but once that happens, it may take up to a week for every character to be properly updated - just be aware.

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As this is not the first time this happens, I thought I'd post the solution from last time. Maybe the devs forgot or the responsible dev changed.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

I've been talking to EA support a week ago. Absolutely noone had a clue until I got to tier 3 support. AT least he is pretending to know, of what I talk.

Support_Agent said:

Hello Fellow Gamer,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts Customer Support. I do apologize for any delay in my response. I have been assigned to your issue, and would be happy to assist you in this matter. As a fellow gamer, I can completely understand your frustration with your account age on Ultima Online. Unfortunately, we are unable to adjust the accounts age, and it should be known that the account age is calculated by how long the owner has maintained a paid subscription, not by how long the account itself has existed.

Feel free to contact us again if you have any other questions regarding this issue. You can update your support request by clicking on the My Questions link on http://support.ea.com.

Thank You,

<name_removed>
Tier 3 Customer Support
Electronic Arts

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Thrakkar said:

I already know, that the account age is calculated from the maintained subscriptions, but that exactly is the problem. I paid for six and a half (6½) months, but the account age only increased by 2 months. In the last 4 months the account age did NOT MOVE. Regardless if you can't fix this or not, does that mean, I will never be able to get a veteran reward again, just because my account age doesn't update anymore? Well, that can't be either.

Thanks in advance

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Support_Agent said:

Hello Thrakkar,

Thank you for your patience, however if you are needing those veteran rewards, those are only able to be granted by the GM team, and you will need to contact in game support.

Feel free to contact us again if you have any other questions regarding this issue. You can update your support request by clicking on the My Questions link on http://support.ea.com.

Thank You,

<name_removed>
Tier 3 Customer Support
Electronic Arts

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Thrakkar said:

It's not about needing the veteran rewards. As the name implies they're a reward for paying the subscription fee (and I would like to have my rewards, since I was and still am paying the fee). Every 12 months one gets a veteran reward choice. But since my account is only 58 months, why should a GM give me a 60-month-reward? Besides, I tried to talk to a GM, but all I got was a simple message with a copy & paste of the "Account age dispute" article from the knowledge base. (Which basically says "write a support request").
Now the customer support tells me to talk to a GM. And a GM tells me to talk to the customer support. So how does this look like to you?

In the last four months, my account age did NOT increase. Maybe you can't correct the age from 58 to 62. But something has to be done, so that my account age starts to increase again.

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Support_Agent said:

Hello Thrakkar,

The reward for paying for your account comes at the end of the month which is paid for. Unfortunately, it is still true that we cannot alter account ago, or give you your veteran rewards. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Feel free to contact us again if you have any other questions regarding this issue. You can update your support request by clicking on the My Questions link on http://support.ea.com.

Thank You,

<name_removed>
Tier 3 Customer Support
Electronic Arts

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Thrakkar said:

Did you even bother to read my reply?

I know, that you can't give me veteran rewards.
I know, that you can't alter my account age.

And no, one does NOT get a reward at the end of a month which is paid for. The only thing, that happens at the end of a month which is paid for, is that the account age increases by one. A reward one gets only every 12 months. You don't even know, how the game works. So it doesn't surprise me, that you have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about.

I will try to explain it again. This time slowly, step by step.

This is, what was happening:

I paid for a month. At the beginning of the month my account age showed 58.
After the month was over, it still showed 58. (By now it should have been 59)
I paid another month.
After the second month was over, it still showed 58. (By now it should have been 60)
I paid another month. After the third month was over, it still showed 58. (By now it should have been 61)
I paid another month. After the fourth month was over, it still showed 58. (By now it should have been 62)

This is, what will happen in the future:

I will pay another month. And my account age will still be 58. Regardless, how often I pay, it won't move. It is stuck at 58!

Now what do I want from EA support:

I do NOT want, that you alter my account age.
I do NOT want, that you just give me a veteran reward.
All I want is, that you get my account age unstuck again. So I can pay a month and it will increase again.
Is this so hard to understand?

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Support_Agent said:

Hello Thrakkar,

I can most certainly assure you, that I am fully aware of your issue, however we are unable to fix/alter/or make your age progress. As I have explained, this is server based, and we cannot do anything in regards to your account age, at all. I will be sure to let our developers know of the issue. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Feel free to contact us again if you have any other questions regarding this issue. You can update your support request by clicking on the My Questions link on http://support.ea.com.

Thank You,

<name_removed>
Tier 3 Customer Support
Electronic Arts

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Of course, now it would be extremely interesting, what a dev has to say in this matter.

Stratics Veteran

I know on account age it says your account is 2 months older than it is, but none of mine have updated at all in a while. I thought it might be the billing cycle, but i was recently billed for my 3 months and that wasnt it.

I think its broke again, and this is really something the devs should adress if they care about money, because i know i only keep my oldest accounts open when not playing -just to keep the time going up. Its lame i guess, but really i just want the time on the account, especially my first from 97. So, basically UO would be losing about half of what i pay them if this isnt fixed.

Stratics Veteran

I think it depends on the player and times, my account age on siege (my primary shard) is 2 months BEHIND my account age on origin/atlantic.

So I think the way it works is whatever your primary shard is is the one that's bugged....sigh...

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I think the folks from Lake Austin pretty much assume anytime there is a shard by shard fix to be done, we're either last or don't get it at all. When the "saltpeter crisis" shortly after the HS launch was obvious, the devs added more NPC vendors on several docks on most shards.

LA never got them.

And now it appears that in most of the shards I've created new test characters in, I show up as being eligible for one year veteran rewards.

On LA I'm still stuck on 11 months.

Are they trying to get LA people to transfer to another shard out of frustration so they can shut LA down? It sure feels like it given the third-class citizen status we seem to have.

Stratics Veteran

Don't feel bad, we didn't get them on siege either (Though I did make a tidy little profit on my brit gate vendor by camping it myself and re-selling it, we only had the single alch on the docks, and only at sea market, though I believe there's 2 there now on all shards):/

If anything it was worse for us because, not having tram, we only had a single facet and a single vendor. Granted due to costs I don't think anyone on our shard has fired too many cannon shots. (It can easily take 100k to sink a ship here, on a shard where 100k is still worth a lot)

....switches back to topic....

But yeah, I think the account ages are tallied server by server, and reverts/restarts, failures and the like have effected account ages differently on each. Cant say for a fact but it really does seem like that's how it works, why else would my account age vary by 2-4 months depending on what shard I'm on?

Stratics Veteran

Don't feel bad, we didn't get them on siege either (Though I did make a tidy little profit on my brit gate vendor by camping it myself and re-selling it, we only had the single alch on the docks, and only at sea market, though I believe there's 2 there now on all shards):/

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I don't think there are 2 on LA and I don't think there ever have been.

We have been neglected and ignored for so long it's ridiculous. At least someone can say that on Siege, the rules are so different that the type of player that does Siege might want it to be tougher in that sense. The people on LA probably want the same as what folks on most shards get, yet we seem to be forgotten with regularity.

I made test toons on 5 other shards and on all 5, I got the 1 year reward notice. Not on LA -- still at 11 months.

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